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Chapter One

SCOTT (FOUR YEARS EARLIER)

What was Hell really like? How would the demons torture you as you screamed for mercy? How hot was the fire? How badly would you be burned? What face would the Devil be wearing? I was in Hell. I knew it. A Hell far worse than my addiction, far worse than they could ever imagine in silly movies or books. The fire in my veins was unimaginable. The voices around me laughed and cursed me to more torture. The pokes and the prods felt like lava under my skin. The light destroyed me, glaring and unforgiving.

And the pain...

I could remember no worse pain. The emotional pain from before, before my high, was almost nothing. In this moment in time, that pain in my memory was starting to fade and curl at the edges. I was afraid that if I waited much longer, endured this much longer, I'd lose that memory altogether. I'd rather hold on to that pain instead of this. It would disappear into the black void with my other thoughts, my thoughts on what exactly happened after my body went numb, and I'd be left sitting at the edges again, waiting for something, anything, to float to the top.

Where is Ari?

My eyes snapped open, and I was horribly greeted with more light. Closing them again, I tried to make myself fade into nothingness. Maybe if I ignored this Hell, I could get through it.

"Scott, wake up!"

My cousin's voice sounded so far away.

My body convulsed and jumped, my eyes took the light this time. And several pairs of hands held me back down.

"What's going on?"

"He's conscious!"

"Hold him down and get me some anesthetic!"

I was shaking. I couldn't breathe. The pain was unbearable.

I blinked repeatedly to moist my severely dry eyes and kept them on the light. I forced myself, commanded myself to breathe. And when I did, taking a very loud gasp, the pain intensified. A scream built up in my throat, not from the pain this time, but from realization. I was having withdrawals.

I looked down at my body, and saw ruin.

Taking more loud, deep breaths, I gazed at my ruin, and realized I was not in Hell at all. I was still alive.

I looked back up, at the many faces of paramedics as they did whatever they were doing to me. The pain consumed me once again, the agony of it choking me completely.

I was alive.